Adam A. from Tannersville, PA speaking in Conyers, GA

My name is Derek, I'm an alcoholic, and it's open with a moment of silence followed by the set aside prayer.

God, please help me lay aside everything I think I know about this disease, these steps, this program, this book. Myself and especially you, God, so I may have an open mind and a new experience with this disease, these steps, this program, this book,

myself and especially with you, God, Please help me see the truth.

All right, I'm going to introduce our first speaker. I've gotten to visit with them a few times on the phone. He does the work that we do out of the big book. I I've enjoyed getting to know him on the phone. I'm going to spend some time with them on Sunday and I'm looking forward to that and I'm excited and ready to hear Adams experience. So I give you Adam Andrew.

Hi everybody, My name is Adam Andrew. I'm a recovered alcoholic.

First of all, I want to thank everybody involved in

Tarik for talking me through this in the beginning and and John for giving us a ride. And also apologize ahead of time for my mouth.

God hasn't seen fit to remove that character defect yet. Sometimes it works, you know, but you know. But if I, if I say something about it now, I don't have to think about it and, and try and edit. And when I edit, all I do is mess things up because I'm in my head

and that's not necessarily the best place for me.

I guess tonight

our focus is letting you guys get to know us and me and, and, and I talk a little bit about the first step and how it relates to my alcoholism.

I'm the oldest of of three boys. I'm a byproduct of the 60s. My parents are my dad's 20 years older than me and my mom's 17 years older than me. I was born in 1969,

so I grew up

and a lifestyle of kind of very LAX when it came to alcohol and drugs across the country probably five times before I was five in a in a old camper. It was actually an old pickup that my dad built the camper out of wood on the back and we had the screen door with the curtains and then the whole long haired hippie child naked in the back door. That was me.

And my first

introduction to music was The Allman Brothers and and Donovan and, you know, and this is kind of what I grew up with. And it was, it was perfectly normal.

As I got older and, and I and I became exposed to stuff. I smoked pot with my mom and I drank with my dad. And like I said, it was, it was normal and it was acceptable

and I didn't see anything wrong with it. Because also I grew up in Northern California and all the kids that I grew up with and all my friends

were the same kind of kids that I was. You know their parents were the same way.

Some were a little more extreme than others. You know, some of my, some of my friends growing up were growing their first plants at 10 and 11 years old.

I, my parents had a little bit more, I guess structure, you know, to mainstream society. Not, not a lot more, but a little bit more. My dad had stopped getting high

shortly after my mom continued, but my dad stopped. And so it kind of curtailed our, our, our party lifestyle at home, but it was still there and it was still, like I said, it was normal and acceptable. I I I picked up my first drink, conscious drink to get drunk with my friends at around 12 or 13.

Not quite sure. I'm still kind of burnt.

And it was 2 gallons of red wine and a, and five beers and, and it was about, I don't know, five or six of us. And we all went down to the railroad tracks and hung out a construction site and proceeded to get wrecked. It was most of us. It was our first experience all together. I, I, I went to a very, very, very small Catholic school

on our graduating 9th grade class,

had 17 kids in it. So we all grew up together. We all did the same things for the first time together. You know, and like I said, this was, this was a normal thing in my life. So I never, I never perceived what I was doing is abnormal

until later on. I,

I also want to say that, you know, growing up, I was born in New Jersey and we moved out to California when I was really young. I was about two years old, but the entire family was still on the East Coast. So my whole childhood was back and forth and back and forth. We never really lived back here, but we were always coming back to the East Coast and, and those kind of routes that kids plant and and

build kind of a structure around. I never seem to have those,

you know, I always had kind of that, that Vagabond, you know, gypsy mentality in me, which carried over into my, into my teenage and and, and adult years. But I took my first drink at 12 or 13, got plowed,

woke up the next morning with the most excruciating hangover that I've ever had, that I've ever had, even in all the, you know, And I remember laying in my yard and the sun was beating on my head

and, and it was just so intense. And all I could think about is, I can't wait till next weekend.

I'm going to do this again. You know, it was awesome.

And

but the problem was, is we moved again. Yeah, we moved when I, I, the Wednesday of that week, I came home from school and my dad said pack your stuff. We're hopping on a plane and we came back. So I didn't get the opportunity the next weekend. And I only got one other opportunity between that point and like the next year. And then it it, it didn't happen until I was about 15.

But once I once I hit about 15 or 16 years old, give or take,

I was getting loaded probably 4-5, six times a week.

And

I had a good justification for not being an alcoholic for a lot of years as I didn't drink on Tuesdays

on, you know, because, well, you know, you got to think about this. It's a Thursday. Thursday is the beginning of the weekend. And I'll see you party on the weekend, Fridays, the weekend, Saturdays the weekend, Sundays the weekend, you know, So you all those days are acceptable. And Monday's the end of the weekend, you know. Oh, oh, and and Wednesday's hump day. Yeah. So

I had a I had a legitimate reason to drink those six nights out of the week. I couldn't find one for Tuesday.

I I did later find when I found 5050 Cent Mug night on Tuesdays.

It was all about justification, really. Yeah, but you know, it's interesting. When I was

first trying to get sober, there was a real big emphasis on knowing that you're an alcoholic. You know, knowing, you know, you, you got to, you got to know your first step. And if you, if you relapse, you don't know your first step. And, and, and for me, you know, I, I walked into the rooms, I knew I was an alcoholic. You know, I knew I was an alcoholic from the time I was 16 years old. You know, I, I, me and my buddy used to joke about, you know, how we're Alcoholics because we

case of beer and then go to a keg party. You know, this is where it was like a badge of honor or rite of passage that we used to have, you know, so knowing I was an alcoholic,

I truly played no part in me getting sober. You know, I knew I was an alcoholic long before I got cleaned. But like I said, that life was normal to me and I followed the pattern, you know, of that life. And, and I,

I, I, I moved out when I was about, well, I moved out first time when I was 16, but I moved out permanently when I was 18 years old and

proceeded to drink and, and, and, and party on a, on a daily basis. I, I, I didn't like the idea of having to get a job on. So the electricity got turned off on the the heat got turned off, the water got turned off.

So what I did was I lit candles, I had a fire and I went out to the street with a little pole and turned the water back on. And we used to cook on the little bonfire pit in the backyard. And I got

party money from being the go to guy for anybody who wanted something. You know, I grew up in a college town. It was, and I was, I was a local, so I knew anybody and everybody and everybody who had something, you know, of want to college students who were partying on the weekends. And

I was that guy. And so it allowed me to party the way I wanted to and not have to have any money. I used to say, why, why go to work when you can party? And that logic brought me out onto the street. I, I spent about five years living outside.

And again, justification, you know, why live in a $50,000 house when you can live under a $50 million bridge?

I'm camping. I'm camping out under the stars, you know? Yeah, I had, I had a great spot until they busted me. I had this little cave made out of vines and I had a little clothes line up and I had the radio next to my bed roll and it was right next to the Creek so I could jump in and take a bath. And, you know, I was a very clean cut dirt bag. You know, I, I, I, I bathed on a daily basis, you know,

But you know, I, I lived outside and I did my thing

and I, I, I sold a lot of drugs and I, and I stole a lot of booze And I, I, I used to joke that, you know, my job was to play hacky sack in the park. And that's what I did on.

Ultimately, I ended up getting arrested.

I ended up doing some state time

and I remember when I was locked up, I, I wrote letters, you know, I wanted, I wanted everybody to know that I have a problem and, and that I need help, you know, because I, I did recognize at that point that, you know, every time I've been arrested, it was in the pursuit of getting loaded, you know, and, and I made the connection that, you know, these external consequences have something to do with my drinking.

And I wrote letters and I and I knew I had a problem and I knew I needed to do something about it.

And in California they give you $200.00 when you get released. So within 20 minutes of being released, I had a six pack. Within two hours of being released, I had 1/2 ounce of weed down my pants, bottle of schnapps in my back pocket, and two hits of acid in my system. And I hadn't seen my parole officer yet.

I woke up the next morning after sleeping under a bridge and realized, oh shit, I'm exactly where I was when I started. You know, I'm exact. I'm going back,

you know, and all my friends and all the people that I knew at that time were doing life on the installment plan. You know, they do a year in, six months out, two years in, three months out, you know, and it was just, it was this cycle and I, I knew I didn't want to do that. You know, I remember leaving jail and telling people if you see me within the next year, you'll see me for the rest of my life. If you don't see me within the next year, you won't ever see me again.

And I and I knew that I needed to get away

and I took a geographical cure.

It worked,

but it took a while. OK, I moved to New Jersey, and my theory was, is I need to go where people work.

Yeah. Well, because up until this point, you know, the the idea of a hard day's work was sitting on an inner tube with a keg floating behind me. You know that that was, you know, that's what we did. You know, we, we, we we grew pot, we cook speed. We sold acid and we went energy tubing with a keg floating behind us.

And that was our life. And so I had to go to the East Coast. I came to New Jersey. My mom was here. She was in, she was in Alcoholics Anonymous. And she told me that if I was going to stay with her, I couldn't get high.

Oh, I think that lasted a week.

But I was good. I, I, I, I tried really hard not to come into the house wasted. And then I tried really hard not to smoke a joint out the window. Then I tried really hard,

but the thing was I, I just couldn't do it, you know, I couldn't,

I couldn't stay away from it. You know, I could, I could, I could last a day, I could last two days. But at some point or another, I had to get high.

And the last time,

you know, when I was with my mom, it was the dead came to the came to town and well, visualize it.

I, I went to the show and I woke up on a park bench in the backyard and the landlord got me and my mom threw me out and said, said either you got to get out or you got to go to detox. And so, OK, I'll go to detox. My first experience with my first real experience with Alcoholics Anonymous because I'd been to NAA few years before

with a buddy of mine who I was showing support for. And

I went when I was on two hits of acid and I found the people who smoked the pot in the backyard or in the back, in the back behind the building. But I went for support, you know, and, but I, I went to, I went to detox and

I asked, I asked my mom, how long does it take? Just three to five days. So, you know, after three days, I told my counselor, my mom said I could leave after three. And but the one thing that that struck me when I went in there was they gave you that test. It was like 10 questions, you know, of what makes you an alcoholic. And I answered 8 out of 10. Yes. And my counselor asked me what I thought of that. She said, and I said, well, maybe I'm a potential alcoholic.

And I really believed it at that point, you know, I, I really believed

that, you know, because of these two things that I don't do, you know, that only qualifies me to be potential. You know, I don't really need to stop. I spent another that was probably another three years, two years of actively partying

because I wasn't getting,

you know, it's, it's weird because, you know, there were tremendous consequences that came along with this, but I never really viewed him as consequences because they seemed normal. You know, everybody that I hung out with, you know, up until this point in my life.

I, I don't want to say I, it sounds wrong and I don't know how to articulate this right. But they were less than in a sense, they, they were of a lower.

They've been there longer, I guess is the best way to put it, because I, I wasn't any better than them. But on the outside, I did look better than them.

And so I had these people that were my role models and and the people that I look to as to what was acceptable and what wasn't. And they were so far down past me, I hadn't gotten there yet. I'm fine. I'm OK. You know, Yeah, I'm eating out of a garbage can. But it's OK because I don't look like Ziggy over here. You know, he's got things growing on him, you know, so eating out of a garbage can isn't that bad. And the same thing happened when I, when I came to New Jersey,

you know, I, I still hung out with people who were worse off than I was. And I was able to justify a lot of my, my use, you know,

but it got to a point where I was, I was with this girl and she had finally left me. We were supposed to get married and, and she backed out, which is probably one of the best things that ever happened. But I, I got, I got extremely depressed. I'm in this apartment alone with these two cats,

and I'm trying not to drink.

And I'm making it through the day until about midnight. And then at midnight I got to go to the bar. I can't make it any further, you know, And then I'd close that bar, go to another one and bring those people back to the house and stay up until the morning

because I, I, I have this

allergy. We were talking about this earlier. I have AI have a craving once I put booze in my system on the booze tells me when to stop or something external tells me when to stop. Either I drink until it's done or I drink until I hit a wall, you know, and, and, and sometimes it's figuratively the wall and, you know, sometimes it's, it's not. But you know, I,

I don't stop once I start.

But the thing was, is, is even when I had moments of abstinence, I was, I was incapable of staying away from it, you know, because booze was never my problem. Now, I heard this years ago in it and it really clicked with me is booze was never my problem. Booze was my solution. It did for me what I couldn't do for myself. And I couldn't function in the world without it.

I was, I was around the clock daily drinker and I, I

done at certain points. I did that whole shake thing, you know, but I was young, I was in my early 20s. And so I bounced back relatively quickly. You know, I probably felt like I was 40, but I, I, you know, physically could handle this to a certain degree, but emotionally and, and, and mentally and spiritually, I was just wrecked.

On I eventually got

to the point where I was I was on parole and and and my peel was going to lock me up. I got a dirty test, I got a petty theft and a drunk driving charge all in the same month.

And I went to my PO and I said I need help. I need to go to rehab or I need to go to whatever. And she sent me to this, this place down in New Brunswick, which is like this real hardcore TC. They shave your head and make you wear a diaper and things like that. And, and I know me, you know, I know me. I'm not, you don't have razor wire and the doors aren't locked. I'm not staying in a place like that.

Yeah, it's like called her and I said, either lock me up or give me another day. You know,

me, me questioning everything, right, Right from the gate, you know, But that, that's really how I felt at the time. So she gave me, she gave me another day. And I ended up going into the Salvation Army.

And

for all its faults, the Sally did one thing for me that saved my life. You know, I, I, I bitched and complained all the way through that place, but it did save my life. They told me you got to find God in order to get sober. You know, I didn't buy into their brand. And in fact, I fought it tooth and nail. You know, they used to make us wear a jacket and tie at a Chapel. And, you know, they were telling me I had to cut my hair. You know, I had hair down the middle of my back at the time. And yeah. And I fought it tooth and nail. You know,

I, I had an old tie dye button down shirt that I used to wear to Chapel with the tie. And, you know, you know, I had to, I had to stand out somehow. And I had to, you know, say no, I'm not like you guys somehow. Yeah. And then I, I, I ended, I left the 90, the 90 day program after 89 days. Yeah,

yeah, Good, good alcoholic that I am. But I went into a halfway house. Or not a halfway. Yeah, it was a halfway house. It was a Mount Carmel, Gildan, Newark. And I remember them talking about, you got to talk about your reservations.

We got to talk about your reservations. And, and up until this point, I had never had a problem with weed. I loved my weed, you know, but it never gave me external consequences. It never gave me any problems. You know, I, I, I go to work when I'm stoned, you know, I clean my house when I'm stoned. You know, I don't go to jail when I'm stoned, you know, and I used to talk about this and talk about this and talk about this and talk about this. And one day I went and got high

and,

but I knew I had a problem with booze and I was already in a, A and I have a desire not to drink. So I'm still a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, even though I'm smoking pot. It's okay. You know, you got to think the drink through, you know, let go and let God and and you know, and I I'm smoking a bone outside the back door. You know, I'm going to be spiritual and be a Rasta. You know

it's

here in the back. She knows. I really believe that this was OK.

You know, this is how how insane my mind is. You know, I truly believed that I could smoke dope, be spiritual, be a Rastafarian and go to a A and still stay sober. And

it lasted a few months. It did. It lasted a few months. And eventually this little thing started messing with me. It was this kind of voice in the back of my head saying you're full of shit, you know, and there's guilt in this hypocrisy just started to kind of creep in and just kind of really gnaw at me. And

but you know, one, I didn't relapse. I, I, I was just smoking this natural herb be trying to be spiritual. So I got to go out and I got to get drunk so that I can come back and so I can officially come back. And and I did. I went out and I got drunk.

The problem was is I couldn't come back.

It took me 3 years of going to meetings every single day,

3-4 meetings a day and I wasn't able to put together more than a couple days at a time.

I went to 2D boxes

and got loaded within a day or hours after being released.

I remember I,

I was sober 3 days and I met Carrie

and she was, we were talking about this before, earlier about prayer and medication and she was working that kind of program and,

and, and she had a Mohawk combat boots and a hippie skirt. And I was like, cool, now I'm there in my overalls and no shoes and a tie dye. And we fit. And everybody told us to stay away from each other

and we fit. And we ended up getting together, getting this apartment in East Orange, NJ, which is serious hood. Yeah, Yeah. And

we lasted a little while. It was a, it was a, it was a couple weeks. No, it wasn't a couple weeks.

What,

two days after Pink Floyd? OK, but we were on our way. We went down to this this NA meeting down in East Orange, and we can't find this meeting. I'm gonna go get loaded. You know we found this meeting. Damn. They don't open up this meeting on time. I'm gonna, I'm gonna just go out and get drunk now. If this guy says greasy crackhead one more time, I'm gonna go get high. And he did get,

and so we, you know, we, we proceeded to get drunk that night and

that, that, that was the, the last run, God willing, up until this, you know, that brought me back in and I got to try Zima, which was,

you know, but I, I remember, you know, again, this is

once I start, you know, there's no stopping. I, I can't stop me. Something outside of me needs to stop me. And I remember crawling out of a basement on September 6th

and feeling like my brains been run over by a truck

and walking down Kearney Ave. in Kearny, NJ thinking, God,

I'm here again. You know, I'm homeless again. We lost our little apartment in East Orange because we didn't want to pay rent.

You know, my stuff is in, in, in her mom's garage, you know, and I'm, I'm dirty, I'm stinking, I'm homeless again. And, and I've got this wicked hangover. And I got to go back. I got to go back to the rooms. And I remember walking to, to, to, there was a meeting at noon

in Lyndhurst, which was a few miles away, and we walked down Carney Ave., but we had to stop and get my wallet on the way.

And I went to pick up my wallet from the guy I was with the night before. I had left it in his car. And he handed me back a bag of weed. And on instinct or whatever it was, I took it. I've been talking for the past hour about how I need to go get sober and I'm going to, I'm going to a meeting. And this guy hands me this bag and I just took it right out of his hand. Yeah. I, I don't, you know,

it's this compulsion. It's this, I can't, I don't know how to be sober.

That's that's what, that's what it really comes down to. That's the, you know, the obsession of my mind is not so much that I can control and enjoy my drinking, you know? Yeah, that that's their to some degree, or that was there years ago. But it's gotten to the point where it got to the point where, you know,

no consequence matters anymore because the, the uncomfortability that I'm in when I'm sober is so great that I just don't care, you know, that I just don't care That, that, that, that, that noise in my head and that, and that, that, that pain inside, you know.

But fortunately she had half a brain at that moment and got rid of it. And we walked to this meeting and it was a big book meeting. It wasn't a big book meeting like we know big book meetings to be, but it was still a big book meeting. And I,

I got a big book and we read the story about the Southern bell or whatever her name was. And, and, and the, the scary thing about it was is this is some old Southern woman. And I totally got it. You know, for that moment, I had this, this window where there was no comparison. You know, it was all about tapping into the to the experience and the feeling

and

I jumped right in. You know, I got a sponsor very, very quickly. The problem was my sponsor told me if I did a four step, I would drink.

But I had a sponsor, you know, I, I, I got a network of people that I called on a regular basis. I, I, I got involved and I was making meetings as often as possible and I did the things

that I didn't want to do before. Now, granted, the, the, the group that I, I got sober in didn't believe in step work. They believe that if you make enough meetings that, you know, and you go to enough barbecues and, and if you, you hang out with it, the right people. And because the town of Corning, where I got sober is a very insulated community. Yeah. All the meetings in the area are all within walking distance. And it's every single day of the week. And you can walk to a meeting and you can hide out in a A

and if you hook up with the right crowd, you can hide out in a a completely. And you never have to experience anything out there. And you can run to a meeting and you could share about your problems and feel better until the next day, You know, until you have to run to a meeting and share about your problems and feel better till the next day and and so on. But me, I, I remember being in a meeting

and feeling like a hollowed out egg,

just fragile and, and, and if you touched me, I was going to shatter into a million pieces.

And

there was this old guy who used to go to meetings where I, where I got sober. And this guy was like 40-50 years sober, two days older than dirt and right next to God and had this cigar like this long and this back when you could smoke in meetings and he light up a cigar and, you know, at this midnight meeting and talk about grabbing drunks off the street and bringing them home and reading the book to him.

And I had no idea what he was talking about. You know, I was in this kind of therapy AA and but I heard it, you know, it was there. It got filed and

within a very short period of time of me getting sober, it was probably within September sometime I started to read the book and I read in the in the beginning that this is the basic text of our fellowship. And that clicked. You know, God graced me with a moment of clarity and, and, and it and it registered and it and it made sense to me.

I have no idea why, but it just did. And I started to read it and I started to do

the things in there that it asked me to do. And I remember my sponsor telling me to put away my notebook, you know, because you're going to drink if you do this four step. And I told him, I said, I've been, I'm drinking anyway, what is it going to hurt me? It's the only thing I haven't tried so far, you know, And I finished writing this garbage inventory. I mean, it was, it was 90% lies, but it was as honest as I could have been at the time. You know, it really was truthfully.

And

I brought it to him and we sat down one afternoon and I shared it with him. And it was the first time in my life

that I didn't feel like the nice guy who drank a little too much or the biggest piece of shit on the planet. I I found found some kind of balance with who I was

and

I remember I did,

I did the step. So I'll ask backwards. That first time

I started off with 10, I started looking at 10:00 and 11:00. I started looking at my day and looking at the defects and then writing them down and then looking at them. Do I want God to remove these? Yes, I do. God, please take them away. So I'm doing 1011 six and seven and I'm writing four at the same time. And, and you know what, I, I started to get a feel for this thing, you know, you know, I had no guidance, but I was doing,

I was reaching around in the dark and I was reading the book. And like I said, it was making sense, but it wasn't, you know, 'cause I still got this alcoholic brain. I still got this the the the screwed up mind, but it was making some sense. And

that experience is always brought me to this that that line in there, it says God doesn't make too hard turns for those who seek, you know, because you can do this all ass backwards and it can still happen. Yeah, I know. You know,

I truly believe now, and it's taken me a long time to get to this place. But the methodology doesn't matter, you know, it's the, it's the intent and the fact that I'm truly trying to seek God, you know, and God comes in and, and will tap, you know, because he did it for me.

I, I, I did my best to make all the amends that I was aware of at that time. And I and I and I completed that, that first round of amends.

Oh, I, I probably was less than a year sober on probably maybe six months, nine months because I did that. I did that first inventory at four, yeah, four or five months, whatever it was I started, it took me two months to write it and walked around. I had, I had 160 names on my resentment inventory. And I, I, I, I won't do that to newcomers anymore. You know, it kind of

if, if they're OK and they're writing like that, I don't mess with them,

but if they're starting to kind of stumble or act out or do whatever, I give them a time frame. You know what I mean? I, you know what, you can do it again in six months. You can do it again in a year. You know, 160 names to write and sit in inventory really sucks. You know it it truly because you're miserable through that,

you know, and and it's a long ass fist step too.

But like I said, I, I did this and

you know, and then I, then I, I, I, I, we moved and we met some people who, who had this, they, they had, they had, they had experienced this. And

I learned how to read the book. You know, the, the, the way it was, the way I learned. I don't wanna say the right way because that that's I don't, I don't necessarily believe it's the right way anymore, but I learned to read it

the way Joe and Mark do. You know, I, I got, I got plugged into some people in Staten Island who would been sponsored by Joe or Mark or one or the other. And,

and I, I,

I had a new experience with this and I started to do it again. And but, but again, the the gypsy and me, I moved,

Yeah, I know. And I lost that connection to those people. So what we did is

we started grabbing wet ones,

you know, we started grabbing the relapsers, the people with, you know, 15 years in a, a, but never getting sober and bringing them back to the house and reading the book to them and, and, and sharing this experience with them. And, you know, 'cause I, I went back to that area that doesn't believe in the steps and I had nobody to bounce stuff off of. I had no sponsorship line. I had nobody to, to, to hold me accountable on any level. So what I had to do is I had to take guys through the work in order to do that, to get that,

to get that aspect of my program, my fellowship. And

so we started our house meeting and that's how it began. It became, it began out of necessity,

but it evolved into, into something really cool

at A, at four years sober, I stumbled across a group in Bernardsville, NJ and

I, I asked a guy to be my sponsor who had like 20 something years. And he'd been doing this for a long time. And he's the one who actually gave me the, the real meat to this book. And he, he showed me how to do it, quote UN quote, the right way. You know, I, I, like I said, I've since changed my, my view on that. But he, he gave me the mechanics, you know, and, and the mechanics in that book to me are, are very important.

But what happened? And I'll quickly share my experience on it. I was raised a good Catholic. Yeah, I, I, I, I sit and Neil stand. I say the response. I know the prayers. I'm watching stigmata a few years ago. And I'm saying the response is out of habit to the priest on the, on the TV. You know, that's the kind of, you know, that's what I was raised with. And I became very attached to the, the method in that book

and, and, and the way you're supposed to do it and the right way to do it. And dot the IS and cross the T's and, and do my nightly review at this time and wake up and have my nightly review of my prayer meditation in front of me. And I'm doing this perfect.

And I was and I got crazy, you know, I really did. I got crazy and I got sicker. And I'm looking at these people in in my Home group and they're all seem happy and life is awesome and, and I'm freaking miserable. You know, there's something missing, there's something wrong. And I don't, like I said, I don't blame my sponsor. I blame me for it. But he asked me when he first, when he first, when I first asked him to sponsor me, he asked me to set aside everything that I know

and, and, and what I did. Well, what I should have done is I should have taken what I knew up until that point in my experience and put it on the back burner

and had an open mind to go through to work with him. But instead I threw it out. I just threw it away. And, and what I had been doing for those first four years was working. There was a spirit behind what I was doing. I didn't have the mechanics from the book the way they're laid out, but I had the spirit.

You know, and I threw that spirit out and I got this very rigid fundamentalist kind of big book message and since had to make a lot of amends for that period of time in my life

because I was the kind of guy I'd walk into a 12:00 and 12:00 meeting with my big book under my arm and, and point out where they're doing it wrong, you know,

but I threw out all the all the spirit and I and I got the mechanics and I went crazy. And

I remember sitting in my office one one night and my wife walks in and she says, I want a divorce.

I'm like, what? Totally blown away, you know, truly, I had no idea. In hindsight, you know, she had told me along the way that this is going to happen, you know, but I was totally blindsided by this and I was clueless. And I, and I sat down and I wrote my nightly review that night and my sponsor came up. My wife came up, somebody from my steel on steel came up and her best friend came up. I said oh shit, I'm screwed.

And the people who are closest and most influential in my life are on my nightly review and I hate them right now.

Yeah, and

I, I decided at that point I needed to do this again. I need to go through this process again. And, and I, and I called up my old sponsor, the, the guy that told me I drink. He had since gone through some steps and hadn't experienced himself. And I called him up and I was telling him what was going on and, and that I'm working, I'm working with all these guys and I'm crazy and I don't know what's going on. And I got this, I got this group of people in my living room. There's a whole bunch of them and and I can't be nuts and giving them this information.

And he goes, you know, what you do is

bring a blank book. I was like, what? I can't do that

now. I need my I need my teachers guide. You know, I need that book that's been to 40 workshops with all the, all the right highlighters in the, in the dates and the, and all the facts and figures. No, bring a blank book. And I was totally clueless. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I did it. And I think it was Monday night rolls around and I, I go and I sit in this group and we say our prayer and I crack the book and we're in we agnostic for wherever we were. And I started to read from this blank book and all of a sudden the pages came alive.

And it was exactly what was going on that week